A fellow teaching himself Seam has come up with a clever Web app called 10 Minute Mail. It gives you a valid e-mail address — instantly — for use in registering at Web sites. Ten minutes later (more if you ask), it's gone. You can read mail and reply to it from the page where you create the throw-away address. Limited utility, yes, but easy and free.

Sir Cliff Richard appears set to lose a battle to extend the number of years that musicians can receive royalties for their records, the BBC has learned.

He wants copyright to last 95 years, rather than the present 50 years.

This outcome would mean the report had "missed a great opportunity" to support the music industry, the chairman of the British Phonographic Industry claimed.

Music journalist Neil McCormack told BBC Radio Five Live that this outcome would be a blow to the industry.

"You can make a record in 1955 and have been getting royalties," he said. "Suddenly they're gone."

John Kennedy, the chairman of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, predicted the Treasury would be forced to decide "whether or not it wants to support one of its successful industries".

"If the UK government decides not to support copyright equalisation, then the music industry will have to continue its campaign in Europe," he said.

It's a funny old world. Chinese manufacturers are copying the circuit boards and designs of products from Japan and Korea, and they're doing it so fast that by the time the originals arrive in the marketplace, they’re seen as the fakes!

Everything from designer clothes, handbags, Mont Blanc and other brand pens, expensive cars, golf clubs, jewellery, sports shoes (sneakers), many modern toys including many of the robots in the 'Robosapien' series and plenty more including CDs and DVDs is freely available from 'markets' all over China, and if you know where to look, at markets in Hong Kong, too.

Samsung is said to have been so concerned by seeing its phones copied on the Chinese market that it tracked the distribution channels back to the source and discovered the electronics guys responsible for copying their latest products.

After offering them a job with Samsung and a chance to go legitimate, they are reported to have declined the offer, saying that they were able to make more money by simply continuing in their pirate ways. What Samsung did next is not known.

Los Angeles resident Brett Stone said he aims to usher in 2007 by building a .91-meter (three-foot) cigarette using around 112 grams of marijuana.

Stone said he was inspired to try for a record after learning that the previous biggest joint was made with 100 grams.

Stone said he would be careful to ensure that his record attempt would remain legal, indicating that the joint would be smoked in a local medical marijuana collective.

Stone said he plans to roll an even bigger joint to mark the US football final at the Super Bowl next February -- and has asked companies if they can provide custom made rolling papers to help the attempt.

Traces of radioactive polonium have been found in the blood of the deceased Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, the UK's Health Protection Agency (HPA) said on Friday. His urine also tested positive for radiation.

The agency is now assessing the health risks posed to members of the public who may have come into contact with Litvinenko, including family members and hospital staff who cared for him during the weeks he spent in hospital. They are also trying to decide the safest way for pathologists to conduct an autopsy of his body, and indeed whether such a procedure is safe enough to be performed at all.

Litvinenko, aged 43, died on Thursday of heart failure after claiming he had been poisoned in a London restaurant. He was formerly an agent of the Soviet, then the Russian, security service. He specialised in investigating organised crime and its involvement with corrupt officials.

The European Commission is set to call for an immediate halt on the illegal transfer of financial information to the United States Treasury.

"The hidden, systematic, massive and long-term transfer of personal data by SWIFT to the UST in a confidential, non-transparent and systematic manner for years without effective legal grounds and without the possibility of independent control by public data protection supervisory authorities constitutes a violation of the fundamental European principles as regards data protection and is not in accordance with Belgian and European law," says the EC opinion.

SWIFT has already been found to be in breach of data protection law by Belgian authorities, but no action has been taken. However, complaints filed by campaign group Privacy international in 33 European countries were put on ice while the A29 group formed a consensus opinion.

The latest film in the British spy series is already circulating on the Internet and on illegal DVDs available on the streets of London.

The movie premiered in London on November 14 and went on general release in some countries the following day.

A first version was freely available online on November 17, which apparently came from Russia, was filmed on a camcorder over the heads of a cinema audience and had poor quality sound.

"In the face of this international conspiracy, Bond is really up against it," said David Price, Envisional's head of piracy intelligence.

"There are now several million active digital pirates. Many of them are ordinary families that have got into the habit of downloading the latest episodes of American television hits."

"And they don't have any qualms about using file sharing networks to copy new movies without paying."

Two days after the election, despite claims in the press that there were "no major problems" with e-voting systems, it became clear that Sarasota County in Florida had a pretty serious problem to deal with as somewhere between 8,000 and 18,000 votes on e-voting machines appeared to have gone missing. There were various explanations, but it seems like the machines just didn't record the votes when people hit the touchscreen. levi stein writes in to let us know that the Congressional candidate who lost that election by a mere 369 votes, Christine Jennings, is challenging the election and demanding a new election. She's pointing out that there was clearly something wrong with the machine as the missing votes don't fit statistically with votes from any other county in the district, and that this particularly county had the majority voting in her favor (suggesting those missing votes very likely would have tipped the election). It will certainly be interesting to see what happens in the lawsuit she's filed, as it could open up plenty of similar lawsuits in other areas. Hopefully, the risk of such lawsuits will be just one more thing that elections officials will take into account when deciding whether or not to trust their elections to these problematic machines.

Last week when we pointed to Universal Music's bad decision to sue MySpace we noted how aggressive the company has been recently in demanding that everyone pay them for using their music in any form whatsoever.

Last week, one of the popular viral videos that got passed around was the incredibly earnest, but squirm-inducing, Bank of America employee singing a parody of U2's One to celebrate the bank's merger with MBNA. It's both hilarious and painful at the same time.

However, far be it from Universal Music (who supposedly owns the rights to the U2 song) to recognize parody as fair use. They've apparently been sending cease and desist letters to sites hosting or embedding the video -- and they apparently have threatened Bank of America as well. Of course, it's possible these aren't really the actions of Universal Music.

A federal district judge on Friday rejected the Bush administration's request to halt a lawsuit that alleges AT&T unlawfully cooperated with a broad and unconstitutional government surveillance program.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker said the lawsuit could continue while a portion of it was being appealed, despite the U.S. Justice Department's arguments that further hearings and other proceedings would consequently endanger national security.

Friday's ruling represents another preliminary victory for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed its lawsuit against AT&T in January. In its suit, the EFF charged that AT&T has opened its telecommunications facilities up to the National Security Agency and continues to "to assist the government in its secret surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans."

In July, Walker rejected the Justice Department's attempt to have the suit against AT&T dismissed. That prompted federal prosecutors to appeal to the 9th Circuit a few days later. Along with AT&T, Verizon Communications, BellSouth and Comcast, they urged Walker to delay the case in front of him until the appeals courts reached a decision, which could take years, if it goes to the U.S. Supreme Court.